environmental document, these projections are for the planning process. it doesn't mean that the academy is going there, but the planning department has asked us to get a better gasp of where we're going and learn what the impacts are. even though you see those areas on the map, doesn't mean we are going there but it helps flesh out for ourselves and the planning department and the community that these are potential ideas and potential impacts and when we get the feedback from the environmental document, we'll see that maybe area one or two is not a good idea. they will accommodate our future growth, which may be 5% or 10% a year. supervisor mar: i was going to finish up that from the suggestions made in the last land use hearing from january, i think a lot of people were questioning the expansion plans

and its impact on communities that supervisor maxwell was saying, but getting the numbers more specifically on transportation impacts and other impacts so we're looking closely at if you had 500 to 600 more students per year to san francisco neighborhoods around where the various properties you have, i think we are trying to look at a dollar amount of how much that impacts the neighborhoods and how much can be offset. our office has been working on. so we are looking very specifically at the institutional master plan update as you bring it and the environmental impacts report. >> i want to make sure that everyone realizes we we look at the projected growth, it involves not only onsite students and offsite students. there is a large number of students -- that may live here or not live here.

chair maxwell: thank you for that. getting back to -- i understand that these are only things that are possibilities that you're looking at, but i'm just asking that in those possibilities, part of what you plan to do is looking at the plans. if you are interested in soma, parts -- there are public plans. and you look at the plans and you see if what your use fits in and then you make a decision, but you don't buy it first and then come back and ask us to change the plan or fit you in when you are not a use and that's where the rub comes in with communities. >> if i may respond to that. that is an excellent point and the current environmental process and we can provide more details, but looking at future growth areas, they look if there is an existing plan on file and they can go through those

documents or ongoing processes so we are both on the same page and not contradicting each other. that's the environmental process is helping us flesh through so none of us are standing on our own island. chair maxwell: thank you. we will open it up to public comment if you are finished with presentations. why don't we open up to public comments and we might have more questions to you. public comments. i don't have any cards, but please line up. >> madam chair, miami brad paul and i want to congratulate the planning department. they have done real progress. i wanted to address a question, what is so unique about this institution? and i think there is a good answer and frightening answer. most institutions that we know,

san francisco state, u.s.f. have an idea of maximum ceiling of people they will serve. it might be 5,000 students, 20,000 students. but the academy have a barrier-free admissions program. you write a check, you enrolled. with the 16,000 students they have, with a certain percentage paying $20,000 for the full use of the institution and part-time students paying $8,000, that is a quarter billion dollars a year in tuition. they are incentivized to keep growing and growing with no end. 5% to 10% a year growth rate they could double in size every 10 years and there is no end, because they are a business model for doing this. they aren't the traditional u.s.f. model. imagine if someone said we are going to build a 500-bed

hospital. we will have to double the number of beds every five years and we have a map of where we might do that. and this is the map that you have in your pakistan. these are the -- in your packet. these are the areas. four of these areas, one is to be adopted. you have the central waterfront area. and to not be talking to the people that were involved on city-appointed c.a.c.'s that could give you information. and the reason i'm concerned, hearing about the bridge motel and there were a dozen organizations that were at your last hearing, but a lot of community-based organizations said why are we letting them can bill dcannible this.

if it were better managed, it would be very affordable housing. to convert that to student dorms is the problem we are trying to deal with. the fact that they are talking to some people in that neighborhood is great, but they should be talking to people who care about the affordable housing in the city without taking it off the housing market. and finally, i wanted to mention that in terms of the rent control ordinance, a question was asked earlier about whether or not they are covered by rent control and we think they are. and that would have a real impact. chair maxwell: why do you think that they may be subject to rent control? >> the rent control law as i understand it has a number of just causes. first of all, the head of the

rent board, in the planning department's report, last page, you will see that it says while the department had stated in earlier staff reports that the dwelling units are not subject to the rent control, recent statements by wolf, january 11, 2010 suggest that the rent board has been treating units as subject to rent control. the rent board works on a complaint basis, so they don't go out and make statements. but if someone were to complain and if you look at the rent law, there are a number for evictions. so if the rent law were to be systemically enforced in their buildings, it becomes less and less viable for them to buy up buildings to use as student dorms.

over time, more and more people living in their dorms will not be students because you aren't allowed to evict someone because they leave your school. it is an important distinction and one you should ask them. their website used to say they weren't under rent control. i don't know what they would say if you asked them that question. chair maxwell: if someone can answer that, i will be asking that question about rent control. >> i'm tony kelly. thank you for calling this hearing. we wanted to stay in touch. supervisors, one of the most every day frustrating jobs in organized labor is the actor's representative lobby in orlando. the he canity representative deals with the disney corporation and performer at

disney world and there are labor violations, pay violations and every time the representative has to contact disney about that, the response is, oh really? what's the penalty for that? what's the fine? we'll send you a check. click. that is that person's job every day of the year. that's the kind of situation we have here. we have the company that we need stronger penalties and stronger measures to really change their conduct because we have a planning code. we have a general plan and we have housing stock and we have precious industrial land and they are all at risk. this is speculation. i'm speaking in defense of dog patch. on the screen is one portion of the map that we saw today. and this whole area in the study area is waterfront and includes

the dog patch area and the american industrial center and the food bank, biotech and job ren rateors that we worked on in the neighborhood plan through eight years balancing all the goals of the general plan and what we wanted to do there for the next 30 years. we had a limited supply of land. this e.i.r. puts this at risk. because the first time anyone in the community has seen this survey area for this institution is today at this hearing. so when exactly the academy of arts supposed to go to the community with this? the answer is they will not. when will they? they don't. you combine this kind of scoping for the e.i.r. with their business practices and their business model and you can see

how it puts our entire planning at risk. when supervisor maxwell came into office, we had a wild west in the eastern neighborhoods and all of district 10 where people could build whatever they wanted. we worked hard for 10 years to install planning in the entire area and we can't throw it away because the institution is being aggressive with their real estate speculation. we need better penalties and better prevention on this. >> hi, supervisors, h. brown. what you are practicing is extortion here and you know it. first of all, it's insanity to not want them to grow. the economy of this city is based on two pillars that are in quicksand. one of them is offices and they are always looking for a cheaper

office someplace else and the other is tourism. you are one car bomb away from losing tourism. we have 100,000 students in this city, did you know that, folks? we need 200,000 folks. they aren't going to run away because you have a car bomb. i can't believe what you are saying. you are growing too fast. you said some of those students stay in town. i know, i married three of them over the last 30 years. it's fantastic. you have been chasing artists out of this town for decades and now they want to stay here and you say no. no. no. we have to figure out how much you are going to give. the last meeting was 18 million. and paul says they are victims. that is a lie. you had the rent board up here and they said had two he vickses

over 1,000 units. that is amazing. i would like to see a realtor that matches that. it is positively insane. you want students. this should be a student town. it already is a student town and you should encourage it, particularly students in the arts. representative chiu, you said they are a bad neighbor. you didn't give any specifics. you're losing 16,000 students. and let's see you put the same rigorous study against the art institute. let's see you get mr. hallman's properties. you aren't going to do that. you are after this particular institution because you look out there and you see a fat cat with $450 million a year. you know what? that money is being spent inside san francisco. supervisor maxwell, i watched you with lenar for years, they

providesonned their neighbors and destroyed the environment and chased people out and you think they are a good neighbor, but you don't like artists or students. it is positively ridiculous. nothing but extortion. thank you. chair maxwell: any further public comment? the institutional plan has been the law since 1986. clearly in 1990, and this is based on other information on this chart, but since 1990, clearly they have acquired such sites that they had to comply with that law and file a master plan that says, here are our land holdings, this is our intention. the academy of art is one -- only institution i'm aware of that doesn't own its own property. no one knows what sites they own

until extremely recently when they were forced to disclose it. 2003, there was a letter that went to the academy of art from the planning department saying you have an institutional master plan with us, no response. there was another letter that went out in 2004. 2005, i was in a meeting with two supervisors and the head of the academy of art because they acquired st. bridges. you haven't complied with it. 2009. when is the e.i.r. going to be done? 2012. i was listening. that's what you were told. they known they have had an obligation for 20 years. they have been in violation of the law for 20 years. it's not convenient for their business model to file an institutional master plan. it's a business model. this is a business profit-making institution. this is not u.s.f. this is not golden gate

university. and all of those institutions have institutional master plans on file. they comply with a model. the other thing is troubling, you have a map that shows areas they are interested in and this is the stuff other than in your district. these are the areas of interests. they are interested in cathedral hill. here we have lombard street. what isn't on this map is all the sites they already own. you need to have a merged map, because if you did, you would show sites all over, pacific heights, what is called lower nob hill, the tenderloin, they own lots of buildings that aren't showing. they say, give us another two years. let's go through the process. they have been going through the

process for five years right now. five years since members of this board, called them to account because of st. bridges and said file an institutional master plan. they went through three attorneys and god knows how many staff people and we don't have much other than the paperwork that they are doing the process. you do not get bonus points from me. clean up your act seven years after the fact. chair maxwell: any further public comment? supervisors, do you have any questions that you want to call someone back up, other than staff? then i will close public comment. supervisor mar, questions snr supervisor mar: give us time line as to the followthrough on

the environmental review. >> john ram. we are in this weird catch-22 on the issues. but just to be clear for members of the board and the public, we cannot legalize a use if there is not an environmental review to back that up. in this case, because there are 37 properties, the environmental review needs to be a full impact report and will take 18 months or more to make that happen. that's why we have been very cautious about only signing off on life safety issues. we have been taking great pains as chris pointed out to note that the approvals we are making are for life safety changes to the buildings and not for particular uses. the e.i.r. process is a little hard to pin down and i think the

previous speaker is correct, it will probably take 18 months. so we are in a situation where the uses cannot be legalized until that process is done. the other thing i just wanted to clarify and i understand that the map that you have showing all those districts -- looks a bit alarming and i can totally understand. we had to come up for a way for purposes of the e.i.r. of studying areas for potential growth because they have so many properties that are scattered in a number of different places. and if we are who to look at potential growth which an e.i.r. is intended to do, we need to identify districts that could potentially have additional facilities in. that doesn't mean when we get 18 months down the road, we'll say you can buy buildings in all these districts. the e.i.r. will look at those impacts.

and the planning commission will say, no, the impacts are unacceptable and you cannot go into this particular district. we need to look at the worst case scenario in order to get to that result. chair maxwell: i'm just glad to hear that that is the case that they understand that that's the case. that's why this map was extremely important. i want to thank you for doing that. i want to mention, someone said maybe they could buy commercial buildings and i would say no that's not a good idea either because when we look at the earn neighborhoods, we have tried to preserve. we have to have a base and that's part of our economic base. we have to look at case-by-case bacees. in san francisco, we believe in institutions of higher learning. we are a city that has grown up with institutions of higher learning. i appreciate that and that has

helped san francisco be the city that it is and there are certain ways we have to deal with each other and that's what we are talking about here today, not dealing with each other but how we can. under the issue of rent control, how are we -- since we say that they're not -- they may or may not be, but we are acting as if there are, is there a problem or a reason that they're not or we can't make sure that they are because they are an institution? does that stand? the way. >> no, the rent control board has said they are subject. the apartment units, that they have -- that they have purchasedr in fact, subject to rent control since they were built before 1978. and so the issue is how they operate and make available those spaces to students after they leave the university. and if they are allowed to

remain in those units after they leave the university, at which point they would be subject to rent control. chair maxwell: and then the growth in the ceiling. what about that issue? someone mentioned that potentially maybe there should be and there isn't and the sky is the limit. what do you see and -- state is trying to grow and do things. how does that work? >> just to be clear, the state institutions are not subject to local planning control, rightly or wrongly. but other institutions and hospitals certainly are. and we typically -- i think the short answer is we could get to that point but we won't know until we finish the e.i.r. we will be able to explain or help us determine what is a size over which there are

unacceptable impacts. and we don't know the answer to that. chair maxwell: but there is a plan to try to answer that question? >> yes. in general terms. it will be hard to put a specific number on it, but i think we can work toward that. chair maxwell: colleagues, any further questions or comments? thank you all. i thank the planning department for your work and especially on getting the team together. thank you so much for that. it has been extremely important and you have done a lot for all of us. the institution is better off because of it. and i thank the institution for recognizing that they are part of the city and really being a part and helping with what we are trying to do. so i want to acknowledge that you have done some work and thank you so much. and because we are neighbors and because we believe in values, that's why we are making sure to dot every i.

thank you for your work. colleagues, any further questions or comments? supervisor chiu, you have been real quiet. thank you so much. and thank all of you. madam clerk, is there any further business? we will continue this until the call of the chair. clerk calvillo: no further items. thank you.

>> the san francisco ethnic dance festival is one of the jewels on san francisco sculptural crowns. this is in its 32nd year of showcasing the celebrated dance troupes. this year will be one of the past with four new works representing kondo, afghanistan, china, mexico. -- congo, afghanistan, china, mexico. more than a hundred 30 ensembles

and soloists auditioned in january for a slot in the ethnic dance festival. in the end, 37 companies were selected to perform. 26 of those performances are world premieres. >> each year, we assembled a panel of dance experts that is made up of academics, scholars, researchers. people have been working for decades in the field. many of them came to this country in the seventies and have trained the next generation of dancers. they are proud to see many of these students at the these masterful levels. this was one of the best panel'' we have ever had, extraordinary people.

at the end of the process, they rank their top groups which are then merged into a master list. >> performers are judged on stage presence, costumes, and innovation. >> the four programs are created around an exciting and dynamic range so the soloists and groups selected each weekend will have enough dynamic range to be a society overall to are experience. >> hundreds of dancers from different countries need each other, compare stuff, and make new friends. this has resulted in new cross- cultural collaborations'. >> one of the extraordinary things is that it really only happens here in the san

francisco bay area. all of the dancers that we are presented -- presenting are from the area. they have full-time jobs and they spend their weekends nurturing their passion to sustain these extraordinary dance forms from around the world. the audience cannot help but be inspired. >> this year, the festival will feature a special collaboration that celebrates the mexican bicentennial and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the mexican revolution. >> one of the great area biographers has stepped out of that role and we asked them to create a special work working with 6 x ordinary dance companies that we have assembled dancers from all of these companies to present a united

work in celebration of the bicentennial. >> dancers from over 20 countries are staunch cultures are participating. >> one of the things that is inspiring is how many are being invited back to their home countries as cultural ambassadors from the u.s.. we are teaching them in committees so that the next generation here in america and back to india or bali or whatever will be able to get enriched by these very beautiful art forms. >> thank you for watching "culture wire." and you can find more information